


mark the hills

by fernic



Series: the alertness of time (or, from their youth) [3]
Category: Vicious - V. E. Schwab, Villains Series - V. E. Schwab
Genre: ((((spoiler alert: it's both)))), Dirty Talk, M/M, There is cake, also a butler that isn't really a butler but kind of is?, but which kind you ask???, special guest appearances: victor's shitty parents!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-10
Updated: 2018-08-10
Packaged: 2019-06-15 03:55:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15404409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fernic/pseuds/fernic
Summary: Christmas of 2002. Victor needs someone with him to ensure that a weekend holiday trip to his parents’ won’t end in a bloodbath. Eli just wants to meet Victor’s parents in a purely heterosexual-best-friend kind of way. There’s an arrangement to be made.





	1. for those forgotten

**Author's Note:**

> another fic that takes place before the thesis. Set Christmas of 2002 (because the book was published 2013, therefore 10 years ago was 2003, and this is one year prior to that).
> 
> Because i am a creature of habit and a slave to my personal headcanons (in this case, the idea that Victor is a total poetry lover and reads it as much as he creates it), the title is a snagged fragment from the poem "I Dreamed My Genesis" by (my personal favorite) Dylan Thomas.
> 
> trigger warnings for a very awkward and tense family dinner, mentioning of parental abuse (verbal and physical-- nothing explicitly _said_ , just suggested), and some sexual content-- the actual act won't occur until later. there is some dirty talk, because who would i be if i didn't include victor's filthy mouth, but not as bad (in my opinion?) as the previous. i think the trauma stuffed victor's mouth just a tad.
> 
> with that said, enjoy!

“Oh, this is nice.”

The cab stalls in the driveway, a long, winding road, an eighty yards distance from the residential street that runs along the countryside. Victor stares scrutinizingly out of the window, eyes trained on the dying flower beds that hang from windows sealed tight, on the pristine white paint as pale as the storm-ridden air, on the nice English-cottage style house as a whole, and he cannot help but think it all looks strangely out of place with a foot of its foundation buried under snow. The snow that keeps falling more and more, showing no sign of stopping, judging by the smoke-gray clouds that filter out any blue in the sky. Beside him, Eli presses his lips together and shifts uncomfortably, and Victor belatedly realizes he’s expected to respond.

“Yes,” Victor stiffly replies, that cold, detached tone that sneaks into his voice making Eli frown the slightest bit. Victor feels something twist in his stomach. He doesn’t want Eli to think he’s scared, or nervous, or (god forbid) _upset_ about this whole thing. Because he’s not. He’s... indifferent. Being here isn’t helping him, but it certainly isn’t hurting him, either. He has long gotten used to the tense disappointment that seeps out from his parents and seems to chain onto his skin. He knows that visits such as these are simply customary, a routine he plays a part in if only to avoid unwillingly reading lines of how to deal with detached, isolationist children in the very books he destroys.

Though he does think he could make a rather good poem out of a passage like that.

Victor takes a deep breath and opens the door to the taxi, shoving his hand into his coat pocket and removing a crisp hundred and slapping it on the bench between the drivers and passengers seat. “Let’s go inside then,” Victor says, stepping outside into the cold and the snow. The inch of white sags underneath the weight of him, and he spares a twinge of sympathy he has for Eli, who had chosen to be comfortable rather than impressionable and now must suffer from ice melting and sinking through the fabric of his worn out black converse. Then he shoves that sympathy aside because he shouldn’t be bothering himself with such pointless emotions. Once at the trunk, he hands a shivering Eli his duffel bag, voice detached. “We shouldn’t keep them waiting.”

As the cab backs away from the driveway, the driver performing a complicated looking K-turn in order to properly exit, Victor stomps through the snow to the front door. He relishes in the fact that the bottoms of his trousers and the nice, newly-shined leather of his shoes will be ruined and sodden with water by the time healed it to the door; it gives him an excellent excuse to sneak off to a room and avoid the assessing looks and prodding questions.

Behind him, Eli sneezes. Victor promptly shoves a wrinkled tissue procured from the pocket of his black wool coat into his face. Eli groans as he grabs it. When they reach the door, Victor finally turns around. Eli stares at him, unimpressed, and Victor can’t help the way his hand nervously runs through his hair. His fingers come away wet and numb and cold, and he regrets not bringing a hat of any kind; even something like the flimsy black beanie Eli wears would have prevented his skull from feeling like it’s been chilled down to the stem of his brain.

“Now,” Victor starts, “you remember what I said on the train, correct?”

“Yes,” Eli says.

“And you won’t mention—”

“I won’t comment on the curtains,” Eli sighs.

“Good. And if you’re going to say grace or whatever you Angel-lovers say before you eat, be sure to do it in your head. My parents are firm believers in science and science only. You don’t want their next book to be titled _Turning Your Belief From God to Yourself_ , do you?”

Eli is visibly uncomfortable as he says, “Erm… no, I guess not.”

“Good,” Victor says again, and then he turns back around and raises his fist to the door.

Except he can’t make himself tap his knuckles against the heavy mahogany door.

Victor stands there, Eli right behind him, and he sets his jaw and clamps his molars down hard, squeezing until it feels like his teeth will shatter in his mouth. And then he releases the tension, because his mother has always been able to pick up on that sort of anxiety, and pulls away.

Without looking at Eli, he says, “You do it.”

“What?”

“You. Do. It,” Victor repeats between clenched teeth, stepping swiftly aside. “Knock on the blasted door.”

Eli eyes him carefully but doesn’t ask. Victor doesn’t bother to feel grateful for the ignorance; Eli owes him a lot, given everything Victor has done for him this whole year.

(Like Angie. Like unwavering dedication and trust, something Victor doesn’t just throw around. With keeping his lips sealed shut after late, late nights of hands fumbling and searching underneath warm sheets, dirty words twisting around his tongue as Eli trembles beneath him.)

Eli raps his knuckles against the wood, and then, in an afterthought, picks up the brass knocker and clicks it a few times, too. Every sound sticks itself inside Victor’s chest. And then, from inside the house, footsteps. And the door opens, and Victor’s shoulders immediately loosen.

Because it isn’t his mother. Nor is it his father. It’s Charlie. His dull, unimpressed gaze moves from Eli to Victor, and the edges of his mouth quirk up for the slightest moment in a soft smile.

“Ah, the young Vale makes it home at last,” Charlie muses. His voice is as deep and smooth as Victor remembers, and the fuzzy beginning of a memory start to unfurl inside Victor’s head, and it feels like the very bones of himself are submerged in a weird nostalgia-warm bath. Charlie steps aside and lets his arms lift at his side, an open invitation. “Welcome. I am to take your coats and offer tea. Mr. Victor, your mother was sure to get the raspberry tarts ready for your arrival.” There’s a pause. “I informed her that it was the blackberry ones you preferred, and she then set to order both.”

Seeing Charlie, aged with the same manners and tone, makes Victor feel strangely old and young at the same time. Like he’s sixteen again, looking at his life and wondering why it isn’t like all the movies and books and television shows, wondering where he went wrong. He almost forgets Eli is there until there’s a glove-clad hand cupping his elbow through his wool coat, gently pulling him inside, and suddenly, Victor can speak again.

“Thank you, Charlie. This is my friend, Eliot Cardale.”

Charlie nods to Eli. “Welcome, Mr. Cardale.”

Eli looks visibly uncomfortable. “Er— just Eli is fine. Preferable, actually.”

Charlie nods again and then brushes his fingers against the back collar of Eli’s jacket. “Your coat then, Mr. Eli?”

Eli, still looking a bit put-off at being called Mister, allows Charlie to take his coat.

The entrance to Victor’s parents' house, while certainly grand, is not completely ornate. His parents have a simplistic and modern style and prefer to spend their money on first-class plane tickets and professionally fashionable wardrobes rather than million-dollar chandeliers and small ceramic collectibles. That being said, the outside of the home does not match the inside. One would expect a cozy cottage, slightly too big for an average family of three, yes, but homey nonetheless. But that is not the case. The inside is furnished minimally. Everything is white and a cream-soft pink hue that seems to color even the air, the high ceiling of the entryway painted a delicate baby blue with moon-yellow stars and constellations mapped across the arc of it. Victor scuffs his shoe against the whitish-pink hued marble of the floor and folds his own coat neatly over his arm.

“I think we’ll skip the tea, Charlie,” Victor says. “And I’ll lead Eli to the room he’ll stay in. I assume you’ll ring when dinner is ready?”

“Of course, Mr. Vale.”

“Splendid,” Victor says. “Don’t worry about us. I’ll show Eli his room.” He offers Charlie a small smile when the man reaches to take his coat from his arm, holding it with Eli’s before turning away to hang them in a closet somewhere. His shoes click lightly across the floor until he disappears completely.

And then they’re alone in the too-big open hall of Victor’s childhood home.

Turning to him with an amused grin, Eli asks, “You have a butler?”

“He’s not a butler,” Victor snaps. “He’s a _management and estate advisor_. He handles the schedule for the maid, hires a caterer for social events, and makes sure the house affairs are in order.” _Kept watch over me when I was little_ , Victor doesn’t say. _Interviewed the nannies and set my alarm for school and checked that I brushed my teeth every night._ Something thick and heavy settles in his throat as he says, “He does everything Mother and Father are far too busy to bother with.”

Eli’s smile only grows. “Victor, that’s exactly what a butler _is_.”

“He isn’t a butler,” Victor grumbles, and then he turns away. Seeing Eli look at the walls that are home to the very people he despises makes his stomach squirm. “Come on, then. I’ll show you to your room. Don’t bother with your shoes. The more dirt you leave on the floor, the better.”

The stairs gently creak under their weight, the only clue that the house is aged and well lived-in. Eli tilts his head, so close behind Victor that if he wanted to, he could hook his chin over Victor’s shoulder. “And why’s that?”

Victor grins. “Because the maid doesn’t come for three days,” he answers, turning to look over his shoulder as Eli follows him up the stairs. Eli has a small, curious smile on his face, and Victor flicks his forehead. “And it will drive my mother absolutely mad.”

*

His mother makes a star appearance as Victor shows Eli his room.

It is completely accidental. For one, his mother is wearing a silk robe over her pantsuit, and while a twenty-something businesswoman might be able to pull it off for a front cover magazine shoot, it’s clear his mother was not going for that kind of look. She freezes in the hall, not a hair out of place, a young woman hovering behind her, frozen mid-word. Victor stops at the top of the stairs, and Eli bumps into his shoulder. No one moves.

It takes three seconds for his mother to smile. “Victor, darling,” she says.

“Mother,” Victor greets. At that, Eli starts behind him and tries to duck around Victor’s shoulder to see. Victor calmly shuffles to try to block his view. 

“I believe I told Charlie to keep you and your guest in the sitting room for tea.” 

“We decided to skip the tea,” Victor says. “Eli is tired from the train ride, so I thought I’d just show him to his room right away.”

“Eli? Is that who’s hiding behind you?” his mother asks, eyebrows raising the slightest bit.

Victor’s fist tightens at his side as he bites out, “Yes.”

She smiles. It’s an ugly grin. Victor hates it. “Eli, darling,” she calls, “I’m not that terrifying, am I?”

Eli quickly moves up a step so he is standing beside Victor rather than behind him, and Victor doesn’t even have to look at him to know he has his most charming smile on right now. “Of course not,” Eli laughs, and then he walks forward to shake her hand. She only looks at his palm before slowly enclosing it in her own two hands.

“A strong boy,” she says. “You must do some sort of sport. Rowing? Victor’s father and I tried desperately to get Victor involved when he was younger, but he didn’t have the aptitude for it. He only cared about pretending to be a superhero, all alone in his room.” At this, Eli’s smile falters. It is something Victor knows only he can see, something he catches before Eli lets the act slip completely. Victor’s mother continues, “I guess sports don’t do much of anything now, though. At least he’s doing something right, attending Lockland.”

Eli swallows. “Of course. Victor is brilliant in all of our classes.”

“Not as brilliant as you, though, I take? Of course not.” She drifts past Eli to Victor, and the girl beside her— probably a secretary of some kind— shuffles behind her. Victor watches his mother with slightly narrowed eyes as she approaches. It takes everything in him not to step away when she reaches up and brushes her fingers through her face. How is it that someone a little over half his height makes him feel so small? How is it that, after all these years, he still craves the softness of his mother’s touch against his cheek. “You’ll work on it, though,” she says to him, voice soft. She pats his cheek a little too hard, and Victor winces. 

“Yes,” he says.

“Yes,” his mother agrees. “Of course you will.”

And then she pulls away and walks down the stairs, dragging the girl behind her with only an endless list of tour requirements, and Victor is stationary at the top stair, stuck between two worlds, trying to remember the last time his mother touched him so gently, trying to remember if it ever happened without the sickly-sweet words hiding true cruelty accompanying it. He doesn’t think so. But he could be wrong. Maybe there was a day where he felt like his mother was actually proud of him.

“Vic,” Eli says, finally looking back at him. “Which door? Right or left?”

“Left,” Victor says automatically. The words feel too heavy and big coming out of his mouth. But he ignores that because there is no reason he should feel this way, and he walks past Eli and pushes the door open for him.

Right when the door clicks closed, Eli runs a hand through his hair and says, “Wow.”

“Shut up,” Victor hisses.

_“Wow.”_

“Shut. Up.”

“Sorry, sorry,” Eli mumbles. “I just— I didn’t know they were really like that. I mean, I know you said they were, and I read one of their books because I was curious…”

Victor frowns. “You read one of their books? Which one?”

“The one about teaching young children to separate imaginary fantasies and real-life goals.”

“ _Ugh_. I hate that one. All because I wanted to live at the zoo. I was _seven_ , for fucks sake.”

Eli snorts, and Victor manages to smirk a little bit, but in all honesty, it wasn’t meant to be funny. It’s the truth, the crazy, immature and tragic truth. If he tries, if he really, _really_ tries, he can remember the feeling, as sharp and annoying as a little burn on the side of his tongue. He can remember how excited he was, not because he was going to the zoo, although that certainly was one factor, but because his parents were back from a book tour for the whole week. He remembers sitting down in his father’s empty office, using one of Charlie's fancy calligraphy pens to make a list of everything he wanted to do. He remembers when they came home, jetlagged and exhausted. He remembers his father putting a hand on the top of his head and the way he pushed up into his father’s palm like a cat. He remembers to zoo, and how he walked past animal habitats— blissfully innocent and unknowing to the fact that most likely all those animals were miserable, stripped from their home and freedom, doomed to a life of being ogled at by little boys and girls like him— and was all too easily appeased by the sight of waddling penguins and chirping monkeys. Him, announcing on the ride home that when he grew up, he would come back and live with the little parakeets in the giant bird garden. Him, shocked into silence when his mother and father, instead of laughing and shrugging it off, spent the whole hour and a half lecturing him on realistic goals and dreams, and how the latter was a waste of time, scolding him for allowing his imagination to overcome the sense of logic they knew he must have.

Him, not even bothering to stare out the window because if he did, his father would reach a hand back between the seat and the door and squeeze his knee just a tad bit too hard, enough that he swore his kneecap might squish, all while asking, _Are you even listening?_

Those memories simmer and bubble beneath his subconscious, appearing in flits as he blinks his eyes. Open and shut, open and shut. Victor feels the oncoming assault of a migraine. He can barely remember what, exactly, he saw or said or did that day. The whole event is merely an impression. Of feelings. Of disappointment. Only one thing really sticks out to him, now. He remembers walking ahead of his parents, always three or five or seven steps ahead. He remembers looking around and seeing all the other kids like him. He remembers seeing a boy his age, with cream-yellow hair like his, both of his little hands outstretched and encaptured in his parents’ hold. He remembers not ever being able to recall a day where he held his mother’s hand.

Eli brushes past him and lifts his duffel onto the bed. He unzips it and shifts things around, but makes no move to actually take anything out of the damn thing. He glances over at Victor over his shoulder three separate times, and when he opens his mouth, barely getting out a soft, _Vic_ , Victor has already blinked the memory out of his head and straightens up, even though his posture has been perfectly straight ever since he came within a five mile radius of his parents.

“I’ll leave you to get ready,” Victor dismisses stiffly. Eli’s mouth twists into something unreadable. “Mother likes to begin dinner early, but the main dish will come out at around eight. She’s going to assault you with questions, so prepare for that, and Father will most likely want to dissect your opinions on various subject ranging from your favorite football team to who you voted for last term. I would ask you to try to be charming, but I know that won’t be an issue for you.”

At that, Eli frowns and steps forward, and when Victor sharply steps away, he reaches forward. Victor’s eyes flutter shut as Eli’s fingertips brush over his brow and down the prominent line of his nose, the touch ghostly and as soft as a whisper. He opens his eyes only when Eli’s fingers swipe down the curve of his jaw and then drop uselessly at his sides. Victor tries to swallow and finds he can’t, that sometime between seeing his mother and pushing Eli into his room and feeling Eli’s hand against his face, as soft as a kiss, he’s forgotten how to speak. His throat is as dry, stuffed with cotton and he feels like he can choke on everything he isn’t saying.

Eli looks at him with careful, analyzing eyes and says, “I see where you get your face from.”

Victor blinks. And then he leaves.

It’s not like he doesn’t have any happy memories from his childhood.

Because he does. Most of his childhood was pleasant, full of toys and doting nannies who adored him, who hung his scribbles on the walls and read him a different story every night. And even if one might claim the absent permanent parental figure messed with his head, that wasn’t true either, because Charlie was a constant, always checking in him during mealtimes, writing whatever Victor wanted for dinner on his fancy pad of paper with a fancy pen and then presenting it without fail, no matter how ridiculous. He was always entertained, always watched for, always cared for.

But there is a different sort of neglect that sticks to your skin and hollows out your bones. It’s the kind that comes with the childish confusion of the softest, most painless neglect; the kind that entails parentless school concerts and school emails left unanswered, the kind where his nannies sat in on parent-teacher meetings and took notes, the kind where Christmas and birthday cards were written in Charlie's elegant script, filling store-bought cards with empty words relayed over the phone. It’s the kind that comes in awkward, once a month family dinners, filled with the sound of forks scratching plates and _I know we’re not home, but you still need to work harder_ and _I just don’t understand why you’re like this_ and _We raised a better son than this_ when the truth is: they didn’t raise him at all.

Victor stares up at the ceiling. He is on his bed, laying down, though he has no idea how he got there. He can still feel Eli’s fingers on his face. He groans. Rolls over. Rolls over again. Gets up onto his feet and is out the door in an instant, until he stares at the guest room right across from him, not even five feet away. Then he gets over himself and goes back to lay down on the bed and shoves a pillow on top of his head.

*

“I do wish you had let us send the driver, dear,” his mother sighs as Charlie rounds the table to pour more wine. Victor’s mother delicately places her palm over the rim of her cup, and Charlie promptly moves on to Eli. “It would have been so convenient.”

 _Convenient_ , she says. Like anything with her is _convenient_. Victor stabs his fork into a potato. It gives under the polished silverware, taught skin breaking into soft flesh. When Charlie finally comes to him, he doesn’t tell him to stop until his glass is filled almost to the brim.

“I actually insisted on the train,” Eli says. Victor glares at him. The idiot just has to play the martyr, doesn't he?

Victor’s mother’s stapled-on smile tightens so it’s more gruesome than anything else. “I’m sure you did, dear,” is all she says, and then the topic is dropped.

Unlike his mother, Victor’s father hasn’t spoken a word. 

“So, _Eliot_ ,” Victor’s mother starts. That’s how she says it: _Eliot_. Like his name is some prayer. Like she’s whispering something very secretive into someone’s ear. Like the very sound of his name tickles her. And Victor’s mother is not like that. She is not something that can be charmed or swooned. She is analytical, serious, _professional_. Yet she keeps saying it. Eliot. Eliot. Fucking _Eliot_. “Are you also meaning to enter the medical field after Lockland?”

Eli smiles. Victor doesn’t think he has stopped smiling since dinner started. “I’m not sure. I’m gathering a lot of credits in a lot of classes, though I’m taking a lot of interest in the science of things— the lab aspect, really. Experiments, tests, the works.”

“Oh, how wonderful. Victor’s father and I have met with many lab scientists— for research purposes, you see. We find them all to be a very tight-knit group,” she says. “In fact, this one time when our dear little Victor was only three, we left for a lab in Indonesia, and the people we met were simply fascinating. Why you see…”

And she goes on. And on. And Victor smashes his potatoes until they’re mashed, skin flimsy and gross looking onto of the mountain of soft white. He eats only because he knows he’ll hear about it later, when Eli is upstairs and far out of reach, sharp tones from his father and that condescending voice from his mother, pressing and digging for why he is the way he is. There’s a hearty clearing of the throat, and Victor looks up at his father.

“So, my son,” his father says. Victor’s mother continues with her story with Eli, and Eli, ever the charming and pleasant guest, shuts out everything else, eyes focused entirely on her. “How are you finding Lockland.”

“Fine,” Victor answers honestly. “Which you would know if you cared to visit me. I sent you the dates of visiting days during my first year.”

His father doesn’t smile. Not like his mother would have. Victor prefers it this way. He likes his pain to be dealt with a hard hand. Not with the added on sugar-coating. “We tour during the fall season. Do not act like you don’t know that.”

“There were spring dates, too.”

At this, Victor’s father pauses. “We are busy, Victor,” he sighs finally, nodding at Charlie to gather the plates. Victor watches with half-regret as his dish is pulled away right from under him, barely even touched. “You know this. Don’t act like some petulant child over the matter. You are far too old to be throwing fits because you cannot see your mummy and daddy as often as you’d like.” Another breath. Another bored, questionable look. Another swift feeling of disappointment like a punch to the gut. “Aren’t you exhausted, being so needy? Don’t you think it’s time to grow up?”

Victor clenches the fury that builds up in his chest with a tight knuckled fist. There is no way to make him see. Victor’s mother has faded off and Eli is watching them, weighing the reaction, looking for when to step in, and Victor hates him. He hates him so much he could slit his stupid throat with his steak knife. Except his steak knife is somewhere on his untouched dinner plate, covered in the guts of baked potatoes and Victor’s stomach is growling and he feels so empty, so hollow and bare, like every piece of him has been turned over and cut in half and now he has nothing left to hide. Eli can see everything. Everyone can see everything.

He should be used to this, by now. He knows this.

(Yet he also knows that despite it all, it still hurts.)

And just like that, the anger is gone, and an odd sort of numbness has taken its place. Slowly he nods. “Yes, Father,” he says. “You’re right. I’m plenty busy at the university anyhow. It wouldn’t have worked out for either of us.”

“Very good,” Victor’s father says, and then he turns to Eli. “Now, Mr. Cardale—”

“Bathroom,” Eli cuts in, jumping out of his chair so fast that it scrapes against the wood floor behind him. He locks his gaze with Victor. “Vic, can you show me the way to the restroom?”

Victor’s eyes narrow. “It’s right down the hall on the left, the third—”

“I’d really,” Eli interrupts, “really prefer it if you’d show me.”

Victor looks at his parents, then at Charlie, who is standing silently by the door, and finally, settles his eyes on Eli, standing and flushed at the heavy stares pointed his way. Slowly, Victor removes the silk white napkin from his lap and folds it perfectly before setting it in front of him on the table. Then, he gets up.

“This way,” he says, and Eli quickly falls into step behind him.

They don’t say anything until they’re all the way down the hall from the dining room. Victor slows as they near the bathroom, and watches with an unamused glare as Eli rounds past him, grabs Victor’s wrist, and opens the bathroom door himself. He yanks Victor inside and shuts the door with a slam.

“You knew where the bathroom was,” Victor says as he leans against the sink. He doesn’t say it with an incriminating tone. He just states it like the fact that it is.

Eli blows him off with a wave of his hand. “Of course I did,” he says. “Now kiss me.”

The whole world tilts.

Victor clears his throat. “Excuse me?”

“Don’t act as if you’re surprised,” Eli snorts. “I know you aren’t.”

It’s true. Victor isn’t surprised. A small part of him suspected something like this would happen from the moment they stepped into the house, and that small part had only grown since Eli had met his mother, since they had sat down for dinner, since Victor lost himself under his father’s unconcerned eyes.

“You’re right,” Victor says. “I’m not. But that doesn’t mean hearing it a second time will change my mind.”

“Vic.”

“No. You’re a fucking idiot, Eli. You think a kiss in the bathroom is going to make this dinner any less shitty? Do you really think you hold that much power? I’m not some blushing school girl and I sure as hell don’t like you nearly as much as you think I might.”

“I know you don’t,” Eli says slowly. “But I thought—”

“That some sweet words whispered into my ear would make it all feel better? That you could make it better? God, you're such an arrogant prick, Eliot.”

A small part of him hates himself as he says it. A larger part of him practically purrs at the sight of Eli slouching in front of him, the charm wiped off of his face and replaced with something much more haunted looking. Darker, deeper. Victor wants to dig in and carve it out of his chest and reveal it to the whole wide world.

Finally, Eli says, “I’m telling you that you can take it out on me. Whatever it is, I’ll take it.”

At that, Victor laughs. “You’re telling me to beat the shit out of you? To scream at you until my lungs cave in? There are many things I’d like to do to my parents, Eli. Maybe ten out of a thousand end with them still alive and well.”

“Not physically,” Eli says. He pauses, and Victor can practically see him choosing his words like he’s tiptoeing over cracks in the marble. “Well, not really. I meant emotionally. You can take control. You can take it all away from me. And I won’t do anything. I never do, when we do these things.”

These things. The words settle like dust shaken off of a curtain, floating, sustained in the air, and dropping gracefully to the ground. Victor’s tongue feels too big for his mouth as he says, “You want me to get you off?”

Eli flushes. “I never said that.”

“It was implied,” Victor notes in a bored tone. “Because that’s how it always ends, right? I talk about how pathetic you are and your little masochist side comes out and gets all excited and flustered and you let me shove you around like some cheap whore.” Eli frowns at that and reaches for him, but Victor shoves him away. “Don’t.”

“I just thought,” Eli starts. But he doesn’t finish.

“Nothing,” Victor finally finishes for him. “You thought nothing. You really think I’m going to just take advantage of you here, right now? How will you feel when you walk back into that room, huh? How will you feel when you’re back with Angie?” The name drops like venom from his lips. “I’m not some monster, Eli.”

Eli frowns, and his eyebrows curve down with graceful and genuine confusion. “What we have has nothing to do with Angie.”

He steps closer. 

“And I know you aren’t. You’re not them, Vic. You care.”

“Not about you,” Victor shoots back.

Eli smiles. “Not the version of me in there, no. But I think you like me in here plenty,” he says. Victor can’t deny it. But he doesn’t have to acknowledge it either. He stays decidedly silent. Finally, Eli presses his hand into the white ceramic of the sink and frames Victor against it as he says, “I can’t give you better parents, but I can prevent you from making this whole situation even more of a mess. So I’m telling you one more time, Vic. Take it out on me. Kiss me.”

Victor grabs Eli’s arms and digs his nails into his bare skin, knuckles brushing where he has pushed his dress shirt sleeves up to his elbows. “I hate them,” he hisses.

Eli steps forward and he is so impossible close, breathing in every exhale Victor gives, nudging his nose against Victor’s cheek. “I know,” he whispers. “And that’s perfectly okay.” And then he kisses him, and the world begins to melt away.

Victor Vale is not in love with Eli. Let that be known. He thinks he loved Angie, once. He knows Eli loves Angie now. What happens between them is not love, and it is not hate. It is understanding. It is destroying one another and rebuilding themselves in the other’s wake. It just is.

Victor has never been one for softness. He has been dealt the hard slap of gentle cards in life, all the privilege and opportunity with none of the love and care. He is lucky. He is also not. He thinks Eli understands this more than most people would. And so he lets Eli kiss him gently, lets his whole body relax and soften, until Eli is nudging his hips against his own, and something is awakened.

Just as fast and instantaneous as Eli’s gentle lips against his own, Victor pushes back harshly. He yanks himself away and shoves Eli against the wall and, with one hand firmly stationed around the base of the back of his neck, pulls him down. Their teeth clash and Eli’s nails dig into his shoulders and Victor can only think, _Angie_ , as he bites and claws back. He closes his eyes and thinks of her lips, soft and pink and flush, pressing softly against his, and then that thought turns into the visual of her kissing Eli, not even two weeks after he introduced them. And then he thinks of Eli as he is, right now, and that one night when they were drunk, and then the week after that when they weren’t so drunk, hands pushing into pants and moans swallowed by desperate mouths.

“Just take it all out on me,” Eli whispers as Victor’s teeth drag down the lobe of his ear. “I’ll let you. You know I’ll let you.”

It’s been a while since they’ve come together like this, and Victor would be lying if he tried to convince himself that some small part of him didn’t miss it. Something hurts, when Eli pulls away, his bottom lip kiss-swollen and red and wet with spit. Victor’s spit. Victor reaches up and runs his thumb over the edge of Eli’s mouth, and Eli’s tongue darts out and presses against the pad of it, a motion as suggestive as it is oddly heartwarming. 

“I’m not going to get you off,” Victor reminds him suddenly, tone dark. “You’ll walk back in looking like a total mess, and I’m not going to embarrass myself like that.” 

Impossibly, Eli smiles. “Now I’ve got to think of something gross.”

“Yourself,” Victor supplies childishly, biting down on the side of Eli’s neck suddenly. Nails scratch down his back and Victor reaches behind him and shoves Eli’s hands away, squeezing his wrists hard enough that a hiss punches out between Eli’s teeth. “ _Don’t touch me._ ”

Eli nods and leans down again to slot Victor’s mouth against his own one more time. Victor shoves him hard against the wall, fingers clawing into his shoulders, dragging down his sides and grabbing his hips, until he can feel how hard Eli is, right there against his hip. Victor feels a rush of _something_ — power, validation, excitement. All three, twisted and knotted together.

“Tonight,” Victor hisses, “I am going to _ruin_ you.” 

Eli nods. He’s breathing hard, panting like a dog. It’s disgusting. Victor hates how he loves it. He hates everything about this. Hates himself, hates his hands, hates every piece of him that wants to scratch open Eli’s chest and crawl inside. What is it called, this kind of desire? What is it called, when you want to destroy something so bad?

“Maybe I’ll finally fuck you,” Victor says, almost to himself. He can feel Eli shudder at the words. “Remember last time, how you begged for it? How you basically sobbed at me, begged me to get inside you?”

“Fuck— yes, Vic, _yes_.”

“You really want it, don’t you?” Victor asks slowly. “You greedy thing. You have to have everything. The grades, the girl. What is it like, I wonder, to kiss Angie knowing just the other night you were begging for me to let you come? To feel her, to _fuck_ her, and then crawl into my bed the very next night? Do you ever do to her what you wish I would do to you? Do you ever think of me when she screams?”

Victor knows this isn’t right. He knows these words have only been brought out because of the nightmare he calls his parents in the dining room, with their prodding questions and disappointed sighs. He knows Eli doesn’t deserve any of this, objectively, but he also knows that this is _exactly_ what Eli deserves. He has everything, and Victor has nothing, and yet Eli is still dragging him along, never letting him go. Victor is the one that’s trapped. Not Eli. Never Eli. All Eli needs to say is one thing, one word, _no_ , and Victor would never touch him again. But Eli asked for it, _told_ him to do it, keeps saying _yes_ , keeps arching his back and pressing his chest into Victor’s, keeps nodding his fucking head to everything Victor spits into his ear, and Victor is as much a slave to the feeling Eli is giving him as Eli is to the feeling Victor is undoubtedly giving him.

“I hate you,” Victor snarls, finally wrenching himself away. “I fucking hate you, Eli.”

Eli blinks slowly, dazed. He’s sagged and loose-limbed against the wall, enough that he’s sunk down the very three inches that separate him and Victor, and so when he looks forward, their eyes are level. Victor can feel himself trembling, and he shuts his eyes. A hand, soft and slow, gentle to the bone, brushes the backs of knuckles against his cheek. Victor feels his chest vibrate with the shakiness of his breath. The only hardship Eli’s hand has ever known is the tight-clutch callus of gripping a pencil or pen, but like this, it’s as if Eli has never done anything with his hands at all. It’s like Victor is feeling something brand new for the first time.

“Better?” Eli asks softly. With his eyes still closed, Victor nods, and the hand slips away. “Good,” Eli says. “Because I don’t want to miss dessert.” And then, “And if anything else goes wrong, just remember what you promised.”

At that, Victor frowns. His eyes squint open. “Promised?”

Eli hums and nods. “I intend to hold you to it.”

Victor can’t remember promising anything. He remembers talking, but he always talks, and half the shit that comes out of his mouth is exactly that— shit. He doesn’t remember one word from the next, and that case is especially true when the words are bitten into Eli’s skin and pushed into his mouth and brushed against the fragile line of his neck. But Eli is already pushing him out the door, saying something about actually needing to use the bathroom and getting back before his parents start to wonder what’s taking him so long, and then Victor is looking at the white paneling in the wood, eyebrows furrowed and legs a bit stiff as he forces himself to turn around and go back to sitting with the very people he can’t stand.

By the time Eli returns, dessert is being served. Eli looks at the plate with his lips parted, and Victor half-worries that he'll begin to drool. He looks down. It isn’t that appetizing— strawberries and with a spoonful of mint-colored ice cream and three dollops of cream, all of it drizzled over with walnuts and caramel. Victor tastes the ice cream and his nose wrinkles. Cucumber.

“You don’t like it?” his father asks suddenly. Victor feels his face go warm. He didn’t realize he was being watched so carefully. _Ungrateful_ , his father’s eyes say. _Spoiled and ill-mannered. The worst kind of boy to have_. Eli’s eyes lazily flit back and forth, and Victor feels the brush of a shoe-clad foot run up the length of his calf.

Slowly, he forces another spoonful down and shakes his head with a small smile. “No, Father,” he says smoothly. “Just an itch.”

The shoe rubs against his ankle, and dinner goes on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next chapter isn't even written because i keep deleting it and then restarting so!!! i guess we'll see if the fiftieth fucking time is the charm!
> 
> Here's[ a song ](https://youtu.be/R8OOWcsFj0U)for the mood of this mess.


	2. and others remembered

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Briefly, he wonders if it’s wrong. If it’s okay to want to claw someone apart when they’re under him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sex. that's it.
> 
> tw for light restraint while having sex, i.e; pinning someone’s hands down/holding them behind their back. also warning for victor being a condescending shit in the bedroom, but what else is new?

Victor escapes his mother’s insistence at exploring their newly-integrated library by feigning a headache from the travels that got him sent to this hell in the first place.

“But you had three hours to nap before dinner, dear,” his mother insists. A decade ago, hearing the frown in her voice and staring at the dimple on her chin that only appeared when she was worried or upset would be enough of a nudge for Victor to give in and listen. Now, he secretly relishes in the sight of it. 

He waves her off with a casual flick of his hand. “I spent it doing pre-req work for one of my lectures,” he tells her. “And it’s late, Mother. I’m sure the rebound first editions of your and Father’s books can wait till tomorrow.”

Wrong. He’s sleeping in tomorrow. He’ll only get up from bed if Charlie himself breaks down the door.

“I— well, yes, alright,” his mother amends. “Goodnight, dear.”

Victor means to walk away, but at the obviously expectant expression on his mother’s face, he sighs and steps closer. With a chaste kiss planted on her cheek, he leaves for upstairs to his room, to his waiting bed; to Eli, who should be in said bed— preferably unclothed.

He is met with a properly dressed Eli draped over the loveseat in Victor’s room, sock-clad feet dangling over the velvet upholstery and a half-eaten slice of cake on a fine china plate balanced on his stomach. At the sound of Victor shutting the door behind him, Eli turns to look over his shoulder, fork dangling limply from between his lips. 

“How’d it go?“ Eli politely inquires, licking the frosting stuck to the silverware. His tongue is a flash of blush-pink between slightly chapped lips. At Victor’s glaring silence, Eli holds out the now-stainless fork. “D’you wanna bite?” he asks.

Victor is astounded at how stupid Eli is. He crosses space between his door and the couch quite fast for simply walking at a brisk, fast-paced speed, and in seconds has Eli’s chin tilted up and their lips pressing insistently together. Eli’s surprised sound is a muffled hum and a hand sliding slowly up his bicep and around his shoulder to rest on the back of his neck, drawing him in closer. Eli’s lips part and Victor tastes a hint of chocolate.

He pulls back, which, with Eli’s still-tight grip on the back of his neck, is really only a few centimeters away. Eli’s gaze flickers all over Victor’s face, gaze catching on his eyes and his nose and his lips, and Victor sees glints of gold in Eli’s muddy eyes, his lashes long and spinning shadows. He can see the small pin-head sized mole on Eli’s cheek in fine detail, stares at a patch of red irritation on the edge of his jaw from shaving in a rush just that morning; can smell the dab of cologne still lingering on his skin, mixed only with the slight musk of sweat. Eli is a creature of mundane imperfections. Victor thinks he’s read poetry about this.

Eli closes his eyes and presses his forehead hard against Victor’s and whispers, “I really should finish my cake.”

Victor tilts his head and mumbles, “Fuck the cake.”

“Fuck me.”

“I’ll think about it.” Victor drawls as he moves down and presses his lips into Eli’s neck, grabbing the plate balanced on Eli’s stomach at the same time. Eli treads his fingers lightly through Victor’s hair, only pulling with any sort of strength when Victor starts to stand. Victor places his free hand on Eli’s chest and shoves him away, ignoring his annoyed groan in favor of leaving to put the unfinished slice of cake on his bureau. 

He has begun to turn around when Eli asks, “Do you wanna talk about it?” 

That makes Victor freeze. 

It isn’t like he didn’t expect it— Eli always did seem to want to know about Victor’s tragic past. That’s what he called it, too, back during one of Victor’s first few weeks after meeting Eli, when a “friend” didn’t seem like such a terrifying and nasty thing to have. Tragic. He had bent over Victor’s chair in the library and stared at the sea of inked outlines, exposed words as rare as stars in the city skyline, saw the title and printed authors, put two and two together and asked, _Do you want to talk about them?_ And later that night, in the privacy of their unheated school apartment, Victor did. To an extent. And Eli leaned forward with a blanket draped over his shoulders and he placed a steady palm on Victor’s knee and stated, _All great men come from some sort of tragedy._

As if Victor would ever be a great man.

A pair of hands squeezes themselves in the place underneath where Victor has tucked his elbows, palms spanning across his ribs and chest. Fingers slip easily between the spaces of the buttons of his crisp oxford, skimming across warm skin. Eli stands behind Victor with all the presence in the world and asks ever so softly, “Vic?”

Victor smudges a bit of frosting from the cake onto his thumb and stubbornly sticks it in his mouth if only to have an excuse to not answer his friend's stupid question. Seriously, Eli has no sense of timing. Doesn’t he know that this is how he talks, how he communicates, how he shoves every disgusting, wrong thing out of him? The chocolate is too sweet on his tongue. Doesn’t Eli know that words only do so much? That what helps is the action of pinning someone down, softening all their hard edges, hardening his own jagged ones, is what truly makes him feel like himself again? Victor pulls his thumb away with a curled lip, observing the smear of chocolate still remaining on his skin. He says, “This is absolutely horrid.”

“Hm,” Eli acknowledges. He sidesteps Victor slightly so he’s facing the side of him, right hand still curled loosely around Victor’s hip and wrapped around his waist, and then he grabs Victor’s wrist and pulls his icing-smeared thumb closer and licks the side of it from knuckle to tip, tongue warm and wet and pressing into the flesh of his thumb suggestively.

Victor looks at him with a bored expression. “You’re a menace,” he says, and Eli only smiles, closing his lips around the knuckle. “And a desperate little thing.”

Eli pulls his mouth away with a smirk. “I’m taller than you.”

“Get on your knees and then talk,” Victor grumbles. “Or, actually, don’t. It’s rude to speak with your mouth full.”

Eli snorts, but Victor feels the shiver that runs through him as he presses his nose into the hollow of Victor’s shoulder. “That was horrible.”

“Still standing.”

“Yeesh,” Eli mumbles. He drops down, and when Victor brushes his fingertips over the harsh shadow that cuts across his cheek, he leans into it, like it’s the only thing he’s been waiting for. Hands slide up Victor’s thighs, touching all around, and in one slow movement, Eli leans forward and nudges his nose against Victor’s crotch, a motion that is so cautious and soft it’s like it isn’t even there. Victor pokes his finger into the clean-shaved softness of Eli's cheek and imagines feeling himself through the soft barrier of skin and flesh.

“You don’t deserve it,” Eli whispers suddenly, and Victor is beginning to wonder if Eli wants to turn the whole dominant-role he usually carries over on its head when Eli continues, “The way they treat you, Vic. It’s so horrible. You don’t deserve that. No one does.”

Victor’s teeth clench as he tightens his fist into Eli’s hair. “Shut _up_.”

“No,” Eli responds. He pulls the strap of Victor’s belt through the buckle and slowly slides it free. “Not until you believe me.” He yanks down Victor's trousers and kisses the straining cotton of his black boxer briefs. The usually soft cotton is now nothing more than a scratchy, bothersome barricade holding Victor back from what he really wants. “You’re amazing—”

“I swear to God, Eli—”

“Intelligent, cunning, brilliant in every way,” Eli continues, a soft kiss pressed to Victor’s hip of abdomen or thigh each breath. Victor’s hands are shaking from where they’ve slackened around thick strands of Eli’s hair, and he tries to convince himself it’s from the anger. “Perfect.”

Victor’s stomach squirms at the thought, and something white-hot and angry and devouring grasps him, seizes the air in his lungs and tightens the muscles in his body, and before Victor knows it, he’s wrenching Eli’s mouth open and pushing himself inside. Oddly enough, a certain kind of feeling arises in Victor when Eli’s lips close around him. It’s a kind of white-hot anticipation he knows, something he is used to, and he clings to it, tightens his hold on the physical things he can grab, Eli’s hair and his shoulders and the soft swell of his cheek, as he sinks further into Eli’s mouth. Eli moans at the feeling, and Victor feels it in a shiver that runs down his back to his toes. He fucks into his mouth shallowly until Eli is convulsing with the need to breathe, and he pulls out for only a second before holding Eli’s jaw open again.

“I hate you,” Victor says, forcing himself deep. Eli is gagging and his throat is fighting to breathe, to pull away, but Victor holds him tight because he knows Eli won’t do anything as stupid like throw up or use his teeth. Victor knows him too well for that. No, Eli will kneel there and take it, like the pathetic little thing he is. Victor rolls his hips and watches with an odd sense of disgust and fascination as drool leaks out of the corner of Eli’s mouth and slides down his chin. “You don’t know anything. _Anything_.” 

He pulls out and yanks harshly on Eli’s hair, so rough that he feels some strand rip away from his scalp. Eli whimpers in pain and sits back on his heels wiping his lips and chin with the back of his wrist. When he gets up, Victor pulls him in and kisses him, bites his lower lip so hard he tastes the hot wet iron of blood, and continues to wreak absolute havoc on Eli’s neck, grown pale and thin with the winter. Eli just holds on and whispers into his ear, “I do, I do. I know _you_ , Vic.”

Victor is still achingly hard, and Eli is squirming uncomfortably from being aroused in his nice clothes, and there are more pressing matters to get to, like locking the door, like how to get rid of this giant fucking ball of anger that’s eating him up from the inside, like knowing if he really is going to actually fuck Eli tonight— and if so, the whole semantics and process leading up to that point— but for a second, the world seems to stop turning, and there is only Eli, holding on to Victor as if he is the only thing that grounds him, bearing his neck for Victor to let it all out, to get every bit of pent-up hate out of him.

 _Just let it all out_ , Eli had moaned before. The air pours out of Victor’s lungs in a rush at the memory.

“I’m not going to fuck you,” Victor says suddenly, stepping out of his trousers as he pushes Eli against the edge of the mattress. Eli whines into the open air, a wordless _Why not?_ , and Victor huffs as he makes quick work of Eli’s own belt and complicated trouser clasps. “Because I’ve been disappointed all day and I think it’s your turn. I also think it’d be a nice sight to see you all flustered and red as you beg for my cock to be inside you.”

“Oh fuck,” Eli croaks as Victor pushes down on his shoulders and signals him to sit down on the edge of the bed.

“But for now, I’m going to do good on my promise, and that was to ruin you. So here’s your chance to back out on this, Eli,” Victor finishes, hovering above him. Eli’s hand is like honey on his cheek, and he stares up at Victor like he’s searching for something Victor knows he’ll never find. He stands back up and nudges his nose against Victor’s, and the whispered, _Okay_ , from his lips is enough for Victor to grab him and kiss him.

It takes less than a minute for Victor to get them down to equal states of undress. Sometimes, Victor likes to have Eli completely naked and wanting while he himself remains fully clothed and seemingly unaffected. He likes to tease the buttons of his shirts and listen to Eli beg to touch even a sliver of his chest or stomach. Other times it’s the other way around, where Eli will be straining and suffering against his jeans or trousers or sweatpants, and Victor will laugh as he slowly grinds the heel of his hand into the obvious bulge. But now Victor’s sick need for Eli’s desperation in bed isn’t enough to brush his own dire need for touch, for the feeling of warm skin against his. When it comes down to it, Victor still has instinctual needs.

And right now, he needs to feel. And he also needs to hear how much Eli wants to feel him back.

“Show me how much you want it,” he mumbles into Eli’s neck. He pushes Eli until he’s sitting on the bed once again, and then keeps pushing so Eli moves to lie down properly on the mattress, Victor crawling on after him. Victor hovers above him and stares down at him, sees Eli’s throat bob, feels his throat dry at the sight of his pearlish skin against Eli’s honey-gold hue. 

Eli responds brilliantly, winds his fingers through Victor’s hair and pulls him in, spreads his legs and rolls his hips against Victor’s in a slow, illicit roll. He scratches his nails down Victor’s sides and Victor feels the prickling sensation of red lines welting up down the span of his ribs. He doesn’t need to pull away to know what he’ll see— Eli’s hair, dark and spread across the pillowcase, toes curled into the sheets, fingers twitching with the conflicting want to pull at Victor’s hair and clutch his shoulders and tug at the folded duvet.

“Lemme—“ Eli starts, but he’s stopped at Victor kisses him again. He lets it happen, and Victor pulls away with the satisfying feeling of leaving Eli totally breathless. “Lemme get on top,” Eli finishes, knees squeezing against Victor’s hips.

This is not new; nothing about this is new. Victor has kissed Eli and has been kissed Eli and has had his hands on Eli and has had Eli’s hands on him. He shoved Eli against walls and bookcases and has hefted him onto tables and kitchen counters. He has sat back as Eli straddled him on the couch, the bed, the floor of the science lab on the upper floor. This is not new.

And yet.

(It sends something strikingly cold down Victor’s spine, the feeling of _wait, hold on, something’s different_ seizing him one muscle at a time, synapses sparking and firing for him to move and not just hover silent and brooding like an idiot.)

“Yes,” Victor says without moving at all. Eli blinks slowly and releases the sheets entangled in his fist in favor of twisting a lock of Victor’s fine hair between his fingers. An accidental brush of Eli’s knuckles against his cheek is enough to jolt Victor to action. “Okay,” he says, promptly flipping them.

Eli sits on Victor’s thighs with his long, elegant legs folded neatly beneath him, his toes curled under his feet the only sign of visible tension in his body. Victor brushes the bottom of Eli’s foot with his fingers and relishes in the way Eli shudders. Then, he bends down and kisses Victor, and the minutes slip away.

Time becomes a fluid thing that Eli unwinds and weaves together again with his bare hands. He presses seconds into Victor’s chest, weighs minutes on his thighs, hums hours into his mouth and twists years with his tongue. Victor is truly lost, only knowing Eli’s skin, his mouth, the swollenness of his lips and the plump heat of his tongue. He wants to say something, but when he tries to say the words that seem to keep rising up inside of him all that comes out is everything wrong, everything dirty and filthy, everything that Eli loves, that makes him practically vibrate on Victor’s lap.

“Shuddering for it now, are you?” Victor croons. He hums and sits himself up on an elbow. His other hand slides down Eli’s stomach and pauses right under his belly button. Eli is stuck rigid and tense atop him, his breaths whistling through him sounding like wind through reeds, his eyes trained on the gentle bumps of Victor’s knuckles. Shakily, both of Eli’s hands move to Victor’s abdomen, fingers curling under the gray elastic band of his boxer briefs. He twists the band, rolls it in his grip, pulls it down slightly only to stop when Victor slowly sits up. “Remind me,” Victor murmurs. “What do I call you?” 

Eli looks down at him with a sort of unease, and Victor sweeps up to press his lips against the point of his chin. He doesn’t prod. Doesn’t push. He sits and waits silently, hand never straying above Eli’s knee, fingers curling around the knobby bone

Finally, Eli croaks, “You know what you call me.”

“I do,” Victor amends. “But I want to hear it come out of your mouth.”

Eli seems to have a battle with himself, but Victor knows that other than Eli, he is the only person who knows exactly how his little brain works, and so, of course, he gives in. “Greedy,” Eli whispers. “That’s what you call me.”

Victor hums and moves his hand from where it had been drawing lazy circles around Eli’s knee and lets his fingertips push hard and drag up Eli’s thigh. “And you like that because…?”

“Because it’s true,” Eli says, voice hoarse. “Because I love being touched like this. And I love it, especially when you do it. Because you don’t touch anyone. Not like you touch me.”

“There have been a few here and there,” Victor reveals honestly. Eli doesn’t say anything. “But recently, yes, you’re right..” Victor smoothes both his palms down Eli’s thighs and curls his fingers behind both of his knees. He nudges Eli closer, the bulge in his boxers digging into Victor’s stomach. They’re both sitting up and Victor is eye to eye with Eli, who is peering at him with half-narrowed eyes, a face full of contemplation and anxiety. “I don’t like touching people much.”

“And yet you touch me.” Coming from Eli’s mouth, it almost sounds like a challenge.

“And yet I touch you,” Victor agrees.

If there is one thing Victor knows, it’s that Eli has his secrets. The man seems to be surrounded by them, has layers upon layers of charisma stacked high, has defenses masked as confidence and arrogance and guards himself with easy smiles and carefree laughs. He is an anomaly, something uncharted. And Victor has always had a particular liking of the undiscovered and theoretical. It has been said that those of the same kind find refuge in one another. It explains why immigrants to new cities form block-sized countries of their own, why groups of small fish stay in schools. Victor understands that somewhere, however deep, Eli and him have the same understanding. Victor thinks that Eli understands now, why Victor clings to control and attention like it’s what he lives from (what was it he said, their first night? _Watch me_ , he growled. He pinched Eli’s skin raw the very second his eyes strayed). Victor has not had one ounce of control or attention from the only people he wanted it from his entire life.

 _I like being touched_ , Eli said. And for all Victor loves figuring things out, he believes he does not want to understand why, exactly, Eli craves kind hands like Victor himself craves total control.

(Briefly, he wonders if it’s wrong. If it’s okay to want to claw someone apart when they’re under him. If it’s even worse to enjoy it. He thinks of everything he’s been given. He thinks of everything he’s been denied. Is it worth it, to have everything but yet be missing something that feels so big? Was this hollow thing inside of him, this horrible, hungry beast, destined to be within him no matter if his parents loved him or not?)

Soft fingers push into his temples. Victor blinks and stares right at Eli.

“Don’t zone out on me now, Vale,” Eli says. “Thinking hard doesn’t look cute on you.”

“I hated tonight,” Victor says, and it comes out so easily, so simply, he hasn’t the faintest idea why it had been so hard to even think of it before. He closes his eyes. “I hated it. I hated them.”

Eli’s hands cup his face. His thumbs press gently over Victor’s fluttering eyelids. “I know.” Victor can feel his words spoken against his lips. And then, “Kiss me.”

And Victor does. He kisses Eli and it is soft and gentle and everything he has told himself he is not. And Victor knows how this will end— flashes jump out of his head, snapshots of memories, of _Eli_ , sweating and arching his back off of the bed, mouth dropped open and head thrown back against the wall or the alley or the library bookshelves or, that one time, in the staff bathroom— but he allows himself this: Eli, kissing him like he understands.

And then Victor’s hands run down and pull him closer with a tight grip in the soft flesh at the back of his knees, and Eli keeps kissing him. His lips drag from his collarbones to the center of his chest, nose pressed to the faint splatter of fine blond hair, and Victor indulges him for a few minutes, lets himself be molded under Eli’s hands, let’s himself unfold and refold all the little desires that have started to whisper in his head. His fingers run up to Eli’s shoulders and slip back down around to his ass, fingers barely dipping into the waistband of his boxers, and Eli arches into him until Victor pulls his hands away to tug the soft waves of Eli’s mud brown hair.

“What do you want?” Victor asks again.

Eli is a shuddering mess on Victor’s lap as he pleads, “Touch me.”

Victor tuts. Pulls his hair again so hard Eli hisses through his teeth. “I am touching you. What do you want?”

“Anything,” Eli pleads. “Touch my cock, use my mouth, fuck me, _anything_.”

“You really are desperate for it, aren’t you?” Victor asks. He scratches his nails down the inside of Eli’s thigh, and his nails drag through his flesh like it’s dough. “Trembling on my lap, begging for anything I want to give you, you really make a pathetic picture.”

Eli sags— as if Victor’s words render him boneless— and he just becomes this writhing mass of soft flesh and shaking moans. His chin hooks over Victor’s shoulder and his hands twist together meekly in his lap, unsure of where to hold until Victor grabs them and holds his wrists together behind his back.

And then Victor leans in close and asks, “Do you think you can get off just like this?”

Eli’s answer is in the tentative roll of his hips, the shakiness of his knees as he scoots as close to Victor as he can, the hard outline of his cock aligned perfectly against Victor’s. Every motion is a yes, every escaped noise is a please, everything Eli does is for Victor, with Victor, because in all truth, Eli is not the only desperate one. He just wears it better.

With his free hand, Victor strokes Eli’s cock through his boxers. He stops touching when Eli stops moving and doesn’t go back to brushing his fingers against the dampening fabric until he starts rolling his hips again. Slowly, Eli gets it, and under his breath beneath a croaked out moan, he says, “You asshole.”

“Language,” Victor scolds, only further proving Eli’s point. He grasps the outline of Eli’s cock firmly and rolls the heel of his palm against the bulge, and Eli’s shoulders hunch and his head hangs heavy and all that comes out of him is a soft, “oh,”— like the very word has been punched out of him.

Eli pants and scoots up closer. “Fuck me,” he whines.

Victor frowns pulls his hand away. “No.”

“Then get me off already,” Eli huffs, pulling at Victor’s hair.

“Patience is a virtue,” Victor murmurs. And just because he particularly loves getting Eli all hot and bothered, he plants his feet and pushes up just slightly to slots their hips together without moving any further. He moves over and bites Eli’s bicep. “And you clearly aren’t virtuous.”

“I hate you,” Eli whimpers. “I wanted you to fuck me and you wouldn’t do that, now you won’t even dry hump me?”

Victor’s nose wrinkles. “Do you have to use that word?”

“Dry hump dry hump dry hump,” Eli repeats, only to cut off into a sound of surprise when Victor shoves him off and rolls over to hover on top of him. He lets out a high-pitched keen when Victor angrily grinds his hips down. 

“Shut the fuck up,” Victor hisses. “I don’t want to hear you anymore. I swear your stupidly annoying voice will make me softer than seeing my own grandmothers face would.”

At that, Eli laughs. It’s so out of place and so wrong and much too soft and gentle for Victor’s taste, and so he cuts Eli off with a kiss that’s more teeth than lips and shifts his hips down hard.

Every noise Eli makes is helpless. Victor thrusts against him with a shallow rhythm, forward and back and forward again. Like this, Eli has suddenly turned vocal, and Victor finds he has lost his voice. All he can focus on is Eli beneath him, the pressure of his calves presses insistently hard against his waist, the bump of his crossed ankles against the small of his back. Victor presses down hard and keeps himself there, hips grinding in small circles, and Eli’s head lolls back and his back arches and his teeth clench hard in his mouth.

“Feels good?” Victor asks. His voice is rough and wrecked and he doesn’t think he means it to come out as condescending and cruel, but that’s how it sounds to his own ears. Apparently, that’s also how it sounds to Eli, because the kinky little bastard jolts, hips weakly thrusting up into Victor’s. Still, Victor wants an answer, so he lifts up and reaches his hand between them and flattens his palm on the naked surface of Eli’s stomach. Eli’s eyes squeeze shut and all the breath rushes out of him before he nods and presses his hips into Victor’s. Victor tuts and shoves them down on the bed.

Wearily, Eli’s eyes open. “Yes, yes,” he moans finally. “It feels good, so good.” His hands run up Victor’s bare arms as he mumbles, and a chill runs down Victor’s spine, settling in the pit of his stomach, and his skin suddenly feels too tight, molten hot against his bones, heart speeding and swelling in his chest. He hates it. He wretches Eli’s hands away and gathers his wrists in one hand only to press them into the mattress above the crown of Eli’s head before going back to thrusting himself against Eli. Of course that only serves to entice Eli even more, because he arches his back up and tightens his legs around Victor’s hips and whines over and over, every word only making Victor press harder, thrust faster, push Eli further and further.

 _Just fuck me_ , Eli pleads, _You know I’ll let you_. Words flood out of his mouth and for once, Victor is utterly speechless. _I’ll let you do anything, anything you want. I wanna feel you,_ really _feel you. Please, Vic, I want you. I_ need _you._

“One more word and I’ll leave you here,” Victor growls, and Eli’s eyes, glazed over and wet, slide closed with a helpless hum. Satisfied, Victor finally pulls Eli’s length free from his boxers. He jerks him off steadily and slowly, not so much giving him pleasure as much as he is keeping the stream of it constant and steady. Then he pulls himself free and aligns his cock next to Eli’s. Eli shudders and grabs Victor’s hand and licks it, wetting his entire palm and then lowering it back down. Every stroke is wet and hot and rough in mannerism.

Eli holds himself up on his elbows and watches as his and Victor’s cock slide through Victor’s grip, brushing like silk across his palm. “Fuck,” he wheezes. “Vic, Fuck.”

Victor smirks and peers up at Eli’s face, staring through the shadows that hide it. “Right there? You like me touching you there?” Hurriedly, Eli nods. “You’ve been waiting all day, haven’t you? Poor thing.”

“Yes. God, I’m so close.”

Victor freezes and Eli sighs with helpless frustration when Victor grasps his chin and forces him to meet his eye as he asks, “You’re about to come? How bad do you want it?”

Eli says nothing, and Victor lightly pinches the leaking tip of his cock. Eli jumps and gasps. “So bad,” he croaks right away. “Fuck, Vic. You know how bad.”

Victor shakes his head and removes his hand. “If I knew, I wouldn’t ask. How bad?” He poses his question while scratching the nail of his index finger up Eli’s side, crossing to the front of his chest and circling his nipple. It pebbles up with the slightest brush and remains that way.

“Since dinner,” Eli says, all in one exhale. “Since _before_ dinner. Since you threw my bag into the back of the cab. Since you walked into the kitchen in only a towel. Since last Friday, when you took a match to all of your graded humanities essays.”

“Oooh,” Victor chuckles, low and deep in his chest. Eli looks everywhere but at him. Victor tuts and holds his chin steady. “I’ve kept you waiting a long time, haven’t I?”

Slowly, Eli nods.

“And you’ve waited, all patient, for the time when I would need you.” Another nod. Victor laughs, and it’s all dark, all wrong, and Eli frowns at the sound of it. Victor spits, “Once again, I’m surprised at how much of an idiot you actually are. Have I ever needed your pity, Eliot? Your charity?”

Eli shakes his head. His hands dart up and cup Victor’s cheeks, desperate to hold on even when Victor jerks his head away. They grasp at strands of his hair, pulling to keep him still, to draw him in, to just hold onto, and Victor, fed up with any attempt at being coddled, wretches one of Eli’s wrists in each of his hands and holds them firmly against the bed in the spaces beside each of his shoulders. Eli doesn’t even fight him. “Not like that, Vic,” Eli says in a rush. “Never like that.”

“If not that, then what?” Victor hisses.

Eli whimpers feebly. “I just— It’s usually your thing, to come to me. I was just waiting. Sometimes you work things out on your own. I didn’t want to take you away from that. I still don’t. I’m— Well, that is to say, this is an option. This helps, but so does your poetry, and the library, and the coffee down at the coffeehouse by the Science building. I want to help, Vic, but I don’t want to take you away from helping yourself.”

The words stick in Victor’s head.

But most of all, he hears: _I am an option._

Eli squirms underneath him, and Victor realizes how powerless Eli is. His wrists are loose and compliant under Victor’s palms, his whole body tense, but no more so than it would normally be while underneath Victor. His only source is discomfort is the fact that he’s aching to come, his cock hard and flushed red to the tip, leaking against the flat, dipping plane of his stomach. Victor takes one of his hands away and dips his finger into the drops of pre-come bubbled on Eli’s stomach and traces them upward on his skin, spreads the sticky clearness of it up past his belly button only to circle back down again. Eli’s back arches a bit off of the mattress. His plea is a close-lipped whine, a choked off gasp, a fountain of desperation shone by the thin shine of sweat on his skin and the twitchiness of his limbs. Victor hums and finally runs the back of his knuckles up the underside of Eli’s cock.

He says: “You are not an option.” 

He says: “You are an end.”

He says: “Come, Eli.”

Eli does.

Pearl white stripes across his stomach, his belly jumping up and down fast and heavy with every fast-paced gasp for air, and all the while Eli pulls Victor close, hooks an arm around Victor’s neck and crushes their foreheads together and breathes every breath Victor breathes. Victor watches him, entranced though never willing to admit it, and he doesn’t make any attempt to move away or finish himself off or do anything, really. A thought pops into his head, unsolicited and unwarranted: _I could watch this for a very, very long time and not miss one passing second._

Eli’s eyes flutter open and he exhales shakily. Slowly, he tilts his head up and kisses Victor, slow and steady, and his one free hand runs flat down his chest and stomach, stopping only to touch his achingly hard length slowly, unsure. Victor makes a gruff sound from the back of his throat, and Eli seems to take that as encouragement, because he doesn’t stop touching Victor until he comes, every groan and gasp cut off by Eli’s gentle, kiss-swollen mouth, every shaking arm and quaking leg smoothed over with another hand, every pulse-racing moment paired with the fluttering sensation of Eli’s nose tracing up his neck to kiss him again and again and again.

When it’s over, Victor only pulls away when Eli’s mouth has gone noticeably slackened and loose, and when he does slip off of his friend, he ignores Eli’s low whisper of, “I’m not that tired, really,” to grab something to fix the mess they made on Eli’s stomach and the sheets Victor is meant to be sleeping on. When Eli’s stomach is clean and goose-bumped (because really, it was hilarious to see Eli squirm and pout at the ice-cold dampness of the washcloth Victor provided) and the mysteriously lost pillow is retrieved, Eli says, “You can sleep with me in my bed, if you want.”

Victor decidedly doesn’t respond, instead just slips on his pajama pants and a plain cotton shirt, combs through his hair with his fingers, and picks up his now-wrinkled dress clothes only to lazily hang them over the back of a chair. As an afterthought, he grabs the abandoned slice of cake and gives it to Eli, who sits up in bed with the satin white sheets pulled around his waist and covering his lap. Victor watches Eli finish eating, following the path the fork makes with his eyes as it dips into dark chocolate cake and smudges frosting along the plate and hovers hesitantly in midair as Eli silently asks Victor once again if he’d like any, only to continue to Eli’s mouth when Victor shakes his head no every time. He watches and watches until his eyes burn.

Eli is the one that guides him out of the room, pushes him across the hall, and lets him sit on the edge of the guest bed as he changes out of his dirty boxers into something clean, wearing just a long-sleeved shirt that sports the university’s crew logo on the breast pocket.

“You haven’t been anywhere near a boat in your entire life,” Victor notes, and Eli laughs, and the lamp is turned off and Victor feels Eli slide into bed next to him, loses his breath as an arm hooks around his waist and pulls him down. 

Eli’s nose is smushed right against his shoulder, and even though the bed is queen sized, Eli still lies as close as possible. Victor can feel his smile against his bicep as he says, “Doesn’t mean I won't ever go near one. I can be brave, you know.”

“Yes,” Victor says, as truthful as ever. “I do.”

Eli clears his throat and fluffs the pillow before laying his head down on it. Victor feels too cold on his right side, now, like every bit of warmth has been stolen away. He wants to shift closer but doesn’t know how to explain the reason without sounding like some lame excuse.

The stairs creak. Though Victor knows it is undoubtedly a maid or Charlie making the very last late-night checks around the house, his whole body still goes rigid, unsoothed even when Eli’s hand resumes its place holding his arm, fingers steady and grounding against the underside of his elbow. He remembers too many nights of being young, of staying awake fighting away stubborn tears, of becoming still and silent at every footstep, pleading for no one to come into his room and see how pathetic he truly was and simultaneously _needing_ someone to. Victor has fought with himself for too long, has been a child for too short and spent too much time stuck between wanting to grow up already and leave every bit of trauma behind and also revert back to when he was oblivious that any trauma was being served. 

(He still struggles with it, he thinks. Is being ignored traumatic for a boy of seven? What if he deserved it? What if they didn’t mean to, if it just happened to be this way? They got him the nannies, they paid Charlie well enough to dissuade any maltreatment of him. He had it good. He lived well. So why does he still feel like this? Why does it still hurt so fucking much?)

He thinks Eli is asleep. He is silent and soft beside Victor, breath rising ever so gently and undisturbed. This is not the first time they’ve slept in the same bed before, but this is the first time they’ve done so in a place so quiet. The only other sounds surrounding them is the faint whistling of the wind and the occasional hoot of an owl outside. It is all Eli Eli Eli.

“Why do we do this?” Victor asks into the dark. Wind causes the curtains to puff up in the air, small ghosts of shadows, and Victor’s reply is the deafening wall of silence of nothing, the slow rustle of a body beside him, the hesitance of a hand sliding over his own open palm. Victor asks, “When will this stop?”

Eli’s voice is sleep-ridden, soft and vulnerable when he answers, “Whenever you want it to.”

He thinks time freezes when he follows that with, “And if I don’t?” A pause. “If I don’t want it to stop?”

The wind whispers into the black ink sky. Eli turns back over onto his side and mouths along Victor’s pulse-line with red-numb lips. “Then we won’t.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> highkey lowkey hate this and know that my other fic is muchhhhh better but it literally took me two weeks to even look at this mess again and clean it up again, and as much as i hate posting stuff i don't like, i hate leaving things unfinished even more. so yeah. lmk what you think? [ here's a tune](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjVkbaeu4vdAhUPh-AKHchsBw0QyCkwAHoECAkQBQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DAopbOIH37gs&usg=AOvVaw06thEEOnFRlgtGh12EFgmF) for your patience.


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